Chinese Government Scientist Raises Doubt on Evidence in a Murder Case

BEIJING — A senior Chinese forensic scientist who works for the government has said that the evidence presented in a prominent criminal trial last month did not prove that Neil Heywood, a British businessman, was killed last year by cyanide poisoning.

The scientist, Wang Xuemei, an employee with the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, said in a blog post late on Wednesday that the testimonies by Gu Kailai, the woman convicted last month of killing Mr. Heywood, and her longtime aide did not indicate there were any symptoms of death by cyanide. The official account of Ms. Gu’s trial said she and the aide killed Mr. Heywood, a family friend and business associate, by feeding him cyanide after getting him drunk in a hotel room last November in the southwest metropolis of Chongqing.

Ms. Gu’s husband, Bo Xilai, was removed from his post as party chief of Chongqing in April and suspended from the Politburo the next month, after a former police chief of the city told American diplomats last winter of Mr. Heywood’s death. The former police chief was convicted this week on four charges connected to the case. Mr. Bo’s fall from power is one of the biggest political scandals in China in decades.

In her post, Ms. Wang, the forensic scientist, wrote that based on what she had seen of the testimonies from Ms. Gu and Zhang Xiaojun, the family aide, there were no signs of cyanide poisoning. “This fact can’t help but make one doubt,” she wrote.

Ms. Wang is a dissenter with an official position, a rarity in this drama. Attention focused on her blog post because she is an employee of the government who has been lauded in the Chinese state media and on the Internet. Ms. Wang’s writing adds to doubts that have been raised about the trials of Ms. Gu and Wang Lijun, the former police chief. Some Chinese Internet users have even said they believe the stout woman who appeared at Ms. Gu’s trial was not actually Ms. Gu, who has appeared slim in old photographs, but was a stand-in, though there has been no evidence to support this theory.

Ms. Wang, the forensic scientist and not a relative of Mr. Wang, appeared to be making her judgment on the poisoning based solely on a review of the official account of Ms. Gu’s trial, which was published by Xinhua, the state news agency. In the blog post, Ms. Wang gave only her opinion of the court case and did not reveal anything about her political ties or leanings.

Ms. Wang did not take part in the trial or in an examination of the evidence, and did not indicate in the blog post that she had any special access to case files. The Xinhua accounts of the trials of Ms. Gu and Mr. Wang are plagued with inconsistencies and holes in the narratives, and testimonies or scientific evidence presented in court may not have been accurately documented by Xinhua. Moreover, since the trials were linked to politics and the verdicts were likely predetermined, officials may not have felt the need to thoroughly present evidence in court, even if the evidence had been gathered.

When Mr. Heywood’s corpse was found last November, the police in Chongqing said he had died of excessive drinking, even though Mr. Heywood was not known to be a heavy drinker. The body was cremated days after its discovery without a full autopsy. Mr. Wang and four other police officers were later convicted of harboring Ms. Gu. Mr. Wang was known to be a friend of Ms. Gu’s and her powerful husband.

But during the trials of Ms. Gu and Mr. Wang, officials said police officers working under Mr. Wang collected blood samples from Mr. Heywood’s heart. A lawyer for Mr. Wang had also said in a telephone interview that Mr. Wang had turned over blood samples to Chinese investigators after his meeting with American diplomats.

During Ms. Gu’s trial, her lawyers said that Mr. Heywood might not have died from the poison she fed him, and that there were indications someone might have come into the room afterward and perhaps killed him.

People have raised doubts about other parts of the official narratives. During Ms. Gu’s trial, officials said Mr. Heywood met the Bo family less than a decade ago, and that he approached the son of Mr. Bo and Ms. Gu in England to try to get an introduction to the family. But friends of Mr. Heywood have said that Mr. Heywood became close to the Bo family in the Chinese city of Dalian in the 1990s.

The fate of Mr. Bo is still unclear. The state news media announced in the spring that he was being investigated for “serious disciplinary violations.” Leaders of the Communist Party have been negotiating over how to punish him. That has been complicated by the buildup to a once-a-decade leadership transition expected to take place this fall.

Patrick Zuo contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on September 28, 2012, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Chinese Government Scientist Raises Doubt on Evidence in a Murder Case. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe